As the Obama administration spends tens of millions in taxpayer money on unconstitutional “public relations” contracts promoting its “ObamaCare” takeover of U.S. health care, lawmakers have been unsuccessfully demanding answers for months. If documents are not handed over soon, however, Congress may have to issue subpoenas.

The federal government has been paying certain welfare benefits to deceased individuals and denying Medicare benefits to those alive, thinking they were dead, according to a report from the Social Security Administration's Inspector General.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a rather surprising ruling on ObamaCare this summer, there are indications that the legal challenges to President Obama's signature healthcare legislation are far from over. Liberty Counsel law firm has filed another request with the Supreme Court challenging the law, and the Supreme Court has given the Justice Department 30 days to answer why the Court should not rehear the challenge.

ObamaCare’s employer mandate was supposed to guarantee that most Americans would obtain health insurance through their employers. But for those workers least able to afford insurance on their own — service employees paid on an hourly basis — the law may well be having precisely the opposite effect, as companies simply reduce the number of employees who must be covered by cutting hours.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Darden Restaurants, Inc., operator of casual dining chains such as Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and LongHorn Steakhouse, is doing just that. ObamaCare requires companies to provide “affordable” health insurance to employees working at least 30 hours per week or pay fines of up to $3,000 per employee who instead obtains taxpayer-subsidized insurance on a state exchange. Darden, therefore, is experimenting with limiting most of its employees to 28 hours per week, thus freeing it from the mandate and its accompanying fine.

The response to the admission by Deputy Director for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Penny Thompson, made in September before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), that payments made by the federal government to New York’s state-run development centers were “excessive and unacceptable,” was simple and to the point: those overpayments were “inexcusable” and “exceeded the entire Medicaid budgets of 14 states” and added that “the failure … suggests an institutional failure and a pattern of irresponsible actions that have cost the taxpayers billions.”

President Barack Obama has been saying for months that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney plans to slash Medicare spending, thereby denying senior citizens healthcare, but that Obama himself will save and strengthen it. According to journalist Bob Woodward, however, Obama has admitted in private that he plans to cut the program by $250 billion over 10 years; he just won’t say so in public because that would be “bad politics.”

Health officials are encouraging Americans to get vaccinated for the flu, as there are a significant number of flu shots available this year. Thus far, 85 million flu shots have been distributed of the 135 million doses for this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But some critics assert that it is more dangerous for Americans to acquire the flu shot than the flu.

Taxpayers are funding a “public relations” marketing contract to promote ObamaCare worth almost $1 million so far that will include working with Hollywood to promote the controversial federal healthcare takeover in popular TV shows. Critics blasted the deal as an effort to use propaganda to drum up support for Obama’s deeply unpopular signature statute, which polls show a majority of Americans hope to repeal.